1 Corinthians 1:3-9 | Mark 13:24-37
Jeremy Richards
In the Richards’ house, this past week was full of some of the normal Thanksgiving week stuff. There was time off, good food, a trip to the Christmas tree farm, decorating the house for Christmas, all that. There was even a little bit of time with family, though it was all over Zoom and Facetime. But there was something else happening at the Richards’ home this week as well. When we moved in, there was one element of the house that we said we needed to fix as soon as possible. In fact, it was almost a deal-breaker for me when we first toured the house: the largest wall, on the east side of our family room, was covered in cedar shingles. Even the door was covered in them. It looked like it was supposed to be outside...but it was inside, and I hated it. (Some of you have seen this wall, and some of you even liked it!).
Well, this past week, the drywallers came and turned that hideous wall into a normal wall. So in addition to taking some time off, eating good food, and getting the house ready for Christmas, we primed and painted our new wall this week. Today, my brother-in-law’s coming over and we’re going to install a new light, put up some trim, and maybe even begin installing the new door (remember, the old one is still covered in shingles).
But it’s already looking amazing. It looks so much better now that the new wall’s up and it’s been painted. But there was another step, before we could paint, before the drywallers could even come. We had to rip all those old shingles off the old wall, and it was a decent undertaking. Brie and I spent a big chunk of the previous Saturday with crowbars and hammers. We don’t have any use for cedar shingles, so there was no reason to be gentle with them. Most of them cracked and broke as we jammed the crowbars underneath them and wrenched up. Now they’re stacked up along the side of our house to be used as kindling for our fire pit.
What I’m getting at is that renovation always requires demolition. I’m fairly new to this whole homeowner thing, and to the house projects that go along with it, but I’m learning that renovation is virtually impossible without some degree of demolition. Before you install the new, you must get rid of the old. In 2 Corinthians, Paul makes the same point on a spiritual level. “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation,” he says, “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
For the first Sunday of Advent, the lectionary always assigns one of the three versions of Jesus’ “little apocalypse.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have some version of this, where Jesus’ teachings take a relatively unusual turn, at least for him. He literally gets apocalyptic. Other examples of apocalyptic literature in the Bible are the book of Daniel in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation in the New Testament, but there are apocalyptic elements found throughout much of scripture.
Contrary to what most of us have been taught about apocalyptic literature, it isn’t about the future so much as it’s about the present. Or maybe we should say it addresses the present in light of the future.
Apocalypse just means revelation. It’s about unveiling, revealing what’s true. Apocalyptic texts use extreme, figurative language to reveal what’s really going on beneath the surface. They’re almost always written in the midst of persecution and oppression, and are very much political. They’re subversive. They insist that things are not what they seem. At the heart of bibilical apocalyptic writings is the conviction that despite all evidence to the contrary, God, not empires, rules over creation.
Another characteristic of apocalyptic literature is that it’s often very dualistic. There is a clear good side and a clear bad side. The good side, of course, is always the side that the writer of the apocalypse is on, which is usually the weaker, oppressed group of people. The powerful, who are causing the suffering of the weak, are evil. In the end, the powerful will meet their doom, while the weak and oppressed will be saved. In Jesus’ teaching this morning, the references to the sun and moon that will be darkened, the stars that fall, and the powers in the heavens that are shaken, are all metaphors for oppressive, unjust powers. They will fall, Jesus says, and once that happens, Jesus will arrive on the clouds to gather the elect from the ends of the earth. So there we have it, right at the beginning of the passage, the fall of the powerful and the salvation of the oppressed.
Throughout history, oppressed groups have been drawn to the apocalyptic parts of scripture, finding great hope and comfort in them, while those of us who are fairly comfortable in life, who have a roof over our heads, a stable job, food on the table, are often put off by the apocalyptic parts of the Bible. They’re weird, violent, dualistic, and seemingly irrelevant.
But if we focus only on the destructive parts of these texts, we’re missing the point. The point is not the demolition, but the restoration. In our reading from Mark this morning, there’s actually very little destruction described. It’s mainly about gathering up the faithful. The first metaphor Jesus likens his coming to is a fig tree in bloom, which is about life and beauty and provision. Apocalyptic literature is all about a better world, like the beautiful new wall in our family room. But in order for this new world to come about, we gotta rip up those old shingles and toss them in the fire. We have to burn down all that stands in the way of human flourishing.
I recently saw an interview that CBS Sunday Morning did with Alicia Garza, one of the 3 black women who founded #blacklivesmatter. At one point she mentions dismantling systems in our country that were designed, from the beginning to criminalize “Black people...poor people...people of color, and other oppressed people.” And the interviewer, Mark Whitaker jumps on that word “dismantling.” He says, “So when you use the term ‘dismantle’, I think some people are confused right now about exactly what that means.” Dismantling, destroying, demolition makes us nervous.
And I get it! As much as I hated that gross, shingled wall, I got really scared once we started tearing it down. What if there was some big structural issue that was revealed when we removed the shingles? What if I broke something I wasn’t supposed to break and it would end up costing thousands of dollars to replace? Even if there are problems with the way things are, at least we’re familiar with them, right? Better the devil that you do know than the devil that you don’t.
But Alicia Garza knocks it out of the park with her response. She says, “...when we talk about dismantling systems that are harmful to our communities, it means taking them apart and stopping our usage of them. But we can’t just dismantle without building something in its place, and I think what’s important for all of us to engage in is a reimagining of what it looks like to have dignified communities where we are not patrolling communities with guns and tanks” (emphasis mine).[i]
Dismantling, demolition, destruction...these are all necessary, but they’re never the point. The point is a better world on the other side. The point is renovation, redemption, resurrection, and that requires revolution.
We are living in a time that is very much apocalyptic, in a couple of senses. On the surface level, things just feel apocalyptic. When the fires were so bad, the sky literally went dark and we couldn’t see the sun and moon, which is literally what Jesus talks about in our gospel reading this morning. The smoke was so bad that the very air we breathed was toxic. There’s political unrest, violence in the streets. And all this is happening in the midst of a world-wide pandemic. During the fires, whenever someone asked me how I was doing I would respond, “Just another day in the apocalypse.” Because that’s how it felt and how it continues to feel. It feels apocalyptic.
But these days are apocalyptic in a truer sense as well. They’ve revealed what was already present beneath the surface. The uptick in hate crimes and racism has revealed the bigotry that’s always been part of our country’s DNA, and has yet to be rooted out. The pandemic, wildfires, and hurricanes are revealing the consequences of our total disregard for creation, as we’ve exploited it for decades. Our extreme political polarization has revealed our apathy as a nation -- we would rather gather into groups who think like us, look like us, and live like us than engage with “the other.” We’ve chosen hatred over compassion, judgment over mercy.
Instead of imagining another way, we’ve settled into our camps, wishing to stay where we are while lobbing insults at the other side, as if that will ever lead to anything new. Despair, dehumanization, and hatred are not revolutionary. They are the opposite. They’re business as usual. They’re part of the old order that needs to be torn up and burned down.
In our reading this morning, Jesus tells us to stay awake, to keep working. Ultimately, salvation comes from God, but we are invited into the work of redemption, which Jesus began 2,000 years ago. Christ has gone, but he’s left us to continue the revolution he started. How can we participate in both the demolition and the renovation? How can we subvert the way things are?
So far we’ve mainly been focusing on big picture stuff, but now I would like to turn to the personal.What can we do on an individual level, or at the most on a communal level, as a church? My recommendation this morning is, I would guess, not what you’d expect.
I think the first step towards subverting the way things are, the first step toward living into what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, is...gratitude. Gratitude may not seem very apocalyptic. How do we tear things down with gratitude? But isn’t that true of most of God’s action in the world? God’s action is never as violent as we might expect. God comes as a baby in a manger, as a nonviolent teacher of radical peace and revolutionary love, as a crucified savior. God’s power looks to the world like weakness.
I’ve been thinking about gratitude quite a bit lately, not just because we just celebrated Thanksgiving (though that is part of it), but also because I’ve been reading Diana Butler Bass’ book Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks. In this book, Butler Bass argues that “living gratefully makes the world different.”[ii] She says that gratitude is not simply a feeling, it’s also an ethic: it’s something we choose, a way of living, a way of being. She also argues that it isn’t only for individuals, but is also a communal ethic. So a community that chooses to live gratefully is choosing an alternative way of being. In that sense, it’s subversive. We might even say it’s apocalyptic. It says that the fear, despair, isolation, and fatigue that seem to be ruling our lives don’t actually have the power they appear to have. There is, in the midst of all this blessing, there is goodness, there is grace.
Personally, the last few weeks have been some of the hardest for me. As good as it was to go on vacation with my family a few weeks, after spending a weekend with other people, in a different place, and to play games with them, eat with them, and have them help with Esther -- you know, everyday pre-Covid type things -- coming back home was really hard. My parents went back to Idaho, my sister and brother-in-law went back to their house and back to their jobs, and here we were again, alone, trying to work and parent in isolation. On top of that, I hadn’t turned on the news while on vacation, and seeing the garbage fire that is our current political situation was so depressing.
I’ve gathered that I’m not the only one who’s hit a new low in a pretty low year. Covid cases are spiking, businesses are closing (again), and most of us were forced to cancel Thanksgiving plans with family. Brie’s whole family was supposed to be here for Thanksgiving, most of whom have never seen our new house, but instead we ate Thanksgiving dinner alone, just the three of us.
In the midst of this social climate, it’s easy to see how gratitude is subversive. The act of giving thanks is a radical act of resistance against the powers that seem to be ruling our lives. It seems that we have such little control, yet we can choose to be thankful. Gratitude is a refusal to give in to despair, to the negativity that plagues us. How different would our world be if people focused first and foremost on thanksgiving, not on fear, not on anger, not on resentment? Actually, forget the world for a minute, how different would your life be? How different would my life be?
To be grateful, we must listen to Jesus’ advice from our reading this morning: stay awake! He tells his disciples. “How does gratitude move from feelings to a disposition of character, from an emotion to an ethic?” Butler Bass asks. “Perhaps the first task is to be aware of blessings.”[iii]
Most of us are not in the habit of noticing our blessings, myself included. We’re programmed to focus on the negative, to dwell on anxiety and fear. I’m sure it has something to do with evolution and survival. To subvert this way of thinking, to be grateful, means we must wake up and pay attention. Remember, Diana Butler Bass says it's an ethic. It’s a choice. It takes intention.
It’s easy, these days, to focus on all that’s gone wrong. Chances are, that’s where most of our focus is. We just ordered 2 new ornaments for our tree for 2020. One’s a hot pink dumpster that’s on fire. The other says, “2020: Our First Pandemic.” Obviously there’s nothing wrong with jokes like these. In fact, humor is a really good way to deal with all that’s happening. But it is revealing. For most of us, 2020 only brings to mind all that’s gone wrong.
But how many of us have stopped to think of all that we’re thankful for in 2020? And how might that subversive act run contrary to the narrative we’re hearing everywhere else. And more importantly, how might the habit of gratitude cause us to live differently in relation to God, to our neighbors, our political rivals, and even ourselves? How might we, as people and as a church, live differently if we were to focus on all that is good and blessed in our lives, and not on our fears, frustrations, and anxieties?
So, I’d encourage you today in the silence after the sermon to reflect on what you have to be grateful for, and then to share at least one thing with the rest of us during the time of reflection.
Let’s wake up. Let’s be grateful. Let’s start the revolution.
Amen.
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ8sTwjQ-8c&t=12s
[ii] Diana Butler Bass, Grateful, xviii.
[iii] Ibid 55.